The lucrative children market in China – Update 2020
The one child policy, a part of the family planning policy, ended on January 2016 and created a boom in the China’s mother and baby market.
Last year, the July Children Baby Maternity Expo took place in Shanghai. This exposition was focus on product safety related to children. In the past, China came across many scandals about products safety.
For example, the 2008 Chinese milk scandal was a food safety incident involving milk and infant formula along with other food materials and components being adulterated with melamine. These products caused 300,000 victims in China and the death of six babies. Consequently, the demand of imported milk powder increased last few years.
Indeed, Chinese parents are more inclined to trust foreign products and buy these products. Chinese parents are still interrogating about domestically produced formula. So, the 2017 exposition had a whole hall dedicated to foreign producers from Europe, the United States and Australia. Another hall was dedicated to Chinese companies claiming that their products are supplying from overseas.
The market of organic products for kids
Case study: Ouleyaun-GMA
Ouleyuan is an e-commerce website which targets Chinese consumers and proposes French products. The company was present at the exhibition to promote its Native Bliss and Kids Bliss brands. Consumers can find many types of products on this platform: delicacies, baby food, milk powder or skin are products.
The website focuses on providing natural and organic products. The products offer meets the expectation of Chinese consumers in two areas since French products as well as natural products are gaining popularity.
Everything is organic and all-natural, with many of our products containing extracts from plants unique to France. The Chinese are very open to good-quality products from abroad and, at the same time, they want only the very best products for their children and are willing to pay for them.
High-quality and fashionable kids products are in need in China
Now in China, with the young generation grows up, they care about the quality as well as the style of kid’s products. They tend to choose imported brands because of their fashionable design and good quality.
A lot of international brands specialized in children’s clothes produced from high-quality materials, including organic fiber. Mei Lim said: “In Europe, particularly in the UK, they are much more aware of children’s fashion needs. We feel we are going to be very big in China.”
Many of the country’s middle- to upper-class consumers want real quality for their children, while also valuing items that are a little different.” The Lisa & Damien brand largely sells online but it also has a dedicated outlet in Guangzhou, in southern China. In 2015, the brand even won a major UK design award.
The priority is security in kids products in China
As we all know about China’s scandals about kid’s products happened in China, Chinese consumers care a lot about the security of products they buy for their children. It is also due to those scandals, Chines parents prefer to buy foreign brands because they are preserved as reliable and security.
Chance for UK-based Cozy N Safe to enter Chinese Children car seats market.
The UK-based Cozy N Safe is one of the exhibitors offered specialist car seat for children. The company is a significant player in its home market and across Europe with its rand stocked by leading retailers, including Tesco, Asda, Toys ‘R’ Us, Mothercare and Carrefour.
The sales executive, Yolanda Hu said: “While not so long ago, there were no safety regulations relating to child-seat use in China, that has all changed. In Shenzhen, for instance, children up to four years old must be in a child car seat. It now looks likely that similar requirements will be introduced elsewhere in China. This is great news for us as all of our products already comply with stringent European safety regulations.” to explain the reasons for the company to move into the mainland and the Southeast Asian markets.
Besafe outstands for its car seats safety
Besafe, a Norwegian children’s car seat manufacturer, is another company which want to single out as important product safety. During the exhibition, the company promoted its new iZi Modular i-Size model.
The Product Manager Frank Lilleheil said: “It features both a plastic shell and a reinforced soft shell comprising energy-absorbent material. The head rest and belts are both easy to adjust, making it relatively straightforward to get a child in and out. As with all of our products, it was certified by ADAC, the German automobile association renowned for the rigor of its testing procedures.”
How to promote children products in China?
A Chinese website for Credibility
A website in Chinese is necessary to enter a market and realize branding. This is an efficient solution to increase the popularity of your products, influence consumers with content and design, and develop the image of your company in the country.
Moreover, having a website written in mandarin is essential. Chinese consumers spend more than 40% of their daily life on Internet and these internet users trust more Chinese websites than English websites.
Your website is a portal to create your brand reliability among Chinese viewers. They will never buy products they don’t know and on which they don’t have confidence.
Social media Campaign to boost your e-reputation
According to Statista, China is the world largest connected country: there were around 882 million social media users in China. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are blocked in the country. China is the world’s biggest social media market. WeChat, Weibo and Xiaohongshu are three largest social networks in China.
WeChat is the social media the most used in China and, regardless of the size of your company, it is an essential media to develop your marketing strategy in the country.
There are three main types of WeChat advertising:
- Moments ads
- Mini-program ads
- Official account ads
Moments advertisement is also called native ads. It is displayed in the user’s Moments in the form of original content similar to friends. With billions of high-quality user traffic, Moments ads provides advertisers with an efficient Internet social promotion and marketing platform in China.
Mini-program contains three categories of banner ads, which are ads at the bottom of an article, in-articles ads and KOL-generated ads. Official account ads mean you can have an enterprise account on WeChat, in this subscription account, users can see your brand news.
By promoting your products on social media, you can build a community surrounding your company, reach your target, get feedback and create a friendlier company image.
Sina Weibo, China’s largest SNS so far, has got a nearly 88% penetration rate among the nation’s excess 358 million users. It has also attracted over 130,000 companies including one-third top 500 enterprises in the world. They don’t just join Weibo on impulse, but for the benefit Weibo can bring them. Some come to Weibo for brand awareness, some for brand image and others for closer relationship with customers.
Xiaohongshu, also known as Red Little Book (RED), is a social media and e-commerce platform. It was created as a user-generated content platform for Chinese consumers to share user experiences. Based on this concept, users on the platform are loyal and ready to buy.
With the user database gets bigger and bigger, RED started to create e-commerce on the platform. Now this social network is also a place ideal for marketing campaign, especially those related to KOLs.
E-commerce platforms reach more users
The development of new technologies and the increased use of smartphones and tablets allowed an explosive growth of the e-commerce in China. One of the best Chinese e-commerce platform is Tmall which is part of Alibaba group led by Jack Ma. This is definitely the largest B2C platform in China, it offers a wide a selection of affordable products and decent logistics and attracts value-conscious shoppers.
Contrary to its competitor Taobao, the company has made arrangements to ensure that products sold on Tmall are authentic. Known as the “Amazon of China”, JD.com is also one of the main B2C e-commerce platforms and is Tmall’s biggest rival in terms of baby products. Consequently, using e-commerce platforms to develop your business is a must to efficiently enter the Chinese market.
E-Reputation and brand awareness are essential for entering China’s children market
If you want to enter the Chinese children market, think seriously about your brand image before acting. The reputation is very important if you want to reach your target. The new millennial mother are very strict about the education and the needs of their Children.
They will never contact or buy your products if you have a bad image online or you don’t have an image in China. You have to invest in your brand image for get the Chinese customers’ confidence.
The above-mentioned social networks and e-commerce platforms are main channels to create your brand a good e-reputation and to present your brand to Chinese consumers.
The right strategy to enter the Chinese Market ?
If you want to receive our last tips about promoting your children products in China, feel be free to contact us. Our consultant will contact you back and explain the best strategy, timing, and the budget you need for an effective marketing strategy.
We are specialist of the Chinese Kids market and offers cost efficient solutions to help you grow in China. Contact-us to learn more and get a 30 min free consultation with on of our expert!
